If you’ve ever been to Pike Place Market on a weekend or even during the week in the summer, you know it can come with an immovable wall of people. They have done an incredible job keeping long-term tenants, but at the end of the day sometimes it feels like one of those tourist spots that are taking advantage of you. I refuse to endorse that notion.

That being said, I can never fault people for wanting to escape the crowds, and the Athenian restaurant provides the perfect place to do that. When you walk in, I recommend holding your head high and blasting past the hostess towards the back windows like you’ve been there before. To the left you’ll see a back bar and room that seats people on first-come first-service. This is where you want your home to be.

The Athenian back bar provides amazing views of the harbor, frosty mugs of beer and seafood as fresh as any other spot in the market. It’s like bar food, but if all the bar food is seafood. They have a multiple hour happy hour and are open later than the average stall. The perfect place to close down the market.